In the past, various machines have been developed for automatically processing poultry, including the steps of cutting the poultry in segments, so that the portions of the wings, legs and carcasses could be sold separately. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,373,232, 4,424,608 and 4,536,919 disclose poultry processing equipment whereby the wings of the carcass are removed and the carcasses split through the breast and along the backbone in an automated process.
When the wings of poultry carcasses are removed from the carcasses, sometimes the wings are to be cut up at their joints and sold as individual parts. Recently, wing cutup machines have been developed for this purpose, whereby the poultry wings are placed in the peripheral portion of a rotary carrier wheel, and as the wings move with the wheel, the joints are cut by knives that register with peripheral grooves in the wheel, thereby cutting apart the segments of the wings at the joints. This concept is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,577,368.
The step of placing the poultry wings in separate equipment after the wings have been severed from the carcass so that the wings can be cut apart requires a separate operator, with each wing being individually handled by the operator as it is being placed in the cutup machine.